I Want To Live
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: Spike's thoughts as he walks out of the Red Dragon building and onto the stairs. And his opportunity to live again.


Author's Note: An end-of-the-show vignette, seen through the eyes of Spike as he comes back out of the Red Dragon Syndicate Building after killing Vicious. It will be continued in a CB/FFX/FFVII crossover, Sinning In The Dark, coming sometime in the future. So, if you like this, I'd love it if you'd check out the next one. It's kind of confusing and mostly-terrible, but. . . ( And know that I haven't see the whole series. If you have to nitpick, do it, but try not to flame. )  
  
Dislcaimer: Cowboy Bebop, its characters, and all content belongs to Sunrise, Inc. and Bandai Vision. No violation of these copyrights is intended. and, of course, they probably don't really care I'm writing this anyway. ( I only do this for CB stories for some reason. . . )  
  
  
  
I Want To Live  
  
  
  
I am not the heir to the Red Dragon Syndicate.  
  
I am not the odd-eyed jerk you either hate to love or love to hate.  
  
I am a broken-winged green bird that can't fly, can only walk around and retrace his steps, tied to the past. The Green Bird and the Black Dog. Kind of funny it worked that way with Jet and I. Like the old Sylvester and Tweety cartoons they preserved a couple-hundred years ago and rereleased on the modern disc. The bird's mischevous and always screws with the cat, who you get a feeling really loves the bird deep inside. The cat snags the bird, and the dog comes to beat the bloody shit out of it.  
  
Then the bird goes back to work.  
  
In this case, I can't really target a cat. Maybe it was Faye, but he didn't smack her even once.  
  
Even so, what I mean about not being heir to the Red Dragons is that without the Van, no one can be legally sworn in, and therefore the syndicate is over. They were passing it to the next Van in a few months, too. Maybe Old Man Bull would know what to do, if Vicious didn't, for some reason, get to him, too.  
  
I actually put the blame on Julia for this. If she weren't so goddamned attractive, I never would've gone back looking for her. And now, she's killed me twice and turned the Red Dragon Syndicate Headquarters into, probably, a megamall.  
  
I struggle down the last few steps and look around. The man who got on the wrong end of my bomb on the escalator is nowhere to be seen. But I remember, Shin is somewhere around here.  
  
Dammit, Shin. You were a great kid, but you looked up to Lin way too much. Trying to make buddies with the big-leagues, you wound up just like him. You really shouldn't have waited for me, wherever you are. The Syndicate got to your head and you tried to play hero. Look where it got you. Dead, and it's my fault.  
  
My fault.  
  
Not Julia's, not Vicious'. Mine. For making myself out to be a good leader when I showed off as a rookie, and making people want me in charge, want me to lead them to the finish line. You wanted a leader, you got to meet your god.  
  
Hm. I wonder what Doohan would say, if I'd come to him like this sometime? Something comforting, maybe sit me down and tell me to keep pressure on it. Nah. Not his style. I know exactly what he would say:  
  
"Jesus Christ, Son. You'd better clean that up before you go touchin' anything 'round here."  
  
Old man, I don't know why your name comes before Faye's and Jet's. Maybe I don't want to think about what they're doing. Anything from starving to crying to partying, I really don't want to know. If I know, I'll feel like shit with any of them, so I'd rather assume they got drunk somehow, passed out, and won't hear about how I staggered out of the building -- in the process of doing so now -- and died.  
  
I wonder what would've happened if Vicious had just stabbed me in the back. Literally. Would the Red Dragons ever be the same as they were, or would Vicious run them into the ground with his greed?  
  
I should have known my days were numbered. When Jet and I were alone, I had gone to Old Man Bull to ask for advice on a BLOODY-EYE smuggler named Asimov. He had told me a woman would lead to my death, or something like that. See, I'm going mad even standing here in the sun while people look at me, stunned, as if to say, 'Is it over?'  
  
At first, I thought it was Asimov's girlfriend. A few more came and went, then it was Electra, Vincent's old girlfriend, who seemed to take a bit of a liking to me before I tried to kill off the latter. Julia was always a possibility, though I'd considered her gone for the longest time, and whenever Faye pulled up next to me in the RedTail and gave me a grin, I wondered if I would really make it out of that one. Even, God forbid, Gren had entered my mind when I thought of it, but I guess it did come down to Julia.  
  
Maybe it was Faye, though. Not Faye, as in, it's all her fault, burn her now. Faye, as in, maybe she was the one I was supposed to watch for. She came into the scene soon after the Bull meeting, and I suppose her aiming the gun at me and telling me not to speak was a sign she wanted me to stay.  
  
Maybe she was the special one.  
  
Or maybe, just like Bull told me one day, I'm ten minutes from death and I'm thinking crazy.  
  
Hey, Vicious, wherever you are. How's death? Is it shooting pains, or is it slipping away into a white light and never having to feel pain or sadness again? I hope to the gods it's the shooting pains. Without sadness or more pain, I think I would drop dead of boredness in a few weeks. Weeks. Wonder if they even keep time wherever I'm headed. I probably won't see you again, Vicious. Broken-winged birds can't really ascend anywhere, y'know?  
  
But I've heard even snakes can slither up a tree.  
  
I wonder if I would've stayed in the bounty-hunting game? With Vicious, Julia, Annie and so many others dead, I wouldn't have anyone to go looking for. No real goal to achieve, and all my money would go to that damned woman's food and horse racing. All she has to do is pick the safe lock with a hairpin and she's got a small fortune in her hands if and when we would get it.  
  
Talking crazy, yep.  
  
I'm thinking I'll live to see an hour from now.  
  
Fat chance.  
  
I struggle down a few stairs, staggering and swaying each time my heel falls. They twitch out there, waiting to see if someone will scream and if they can come catch me. I grin slightly and chuckle at this, raising my hand in my gun imitation. They have to know what they'll find when they go up there. And what better to say it than a victory cry. Or gurgle, whatever.  
  
"...Bang."  
  
They won't understand me, of course, but I can't say anything else without falling down. Nevermind. That alone takes most of my air away and I crumple to the ground. My eyes are already closed, but somehow I see the stairs crumble beneath me, splitting into pieces and leaving me to stair into endless darkness. I thought Hell was supposed to be glowing with embers, or Heaven supposed to be lined with gold.  
  
I think this is where the real creeps go.  
  
No bright white light, no pits of fire, just relentless silence and a void of nothingness below me. It's kind of like skydiving, when you get to a place with gravity anyway. Wind is rushing by me, but I don't hear it. And suddenly, someone is whispering into my ear:  
  
"You can die and be with them. Or you can live again and be with others."  
  
I don't even wonder who it is, really. All my karma's finally paying off; I can get to live again. I look at myself. I show up just fine, even with no light source around. Yep. Creepy.  
  
"I want to live."  
  
I start. That wasn't me, and it certainly wasn't the big voice in my ear again. I struggle to turn, to see who it is, but no one's there. I wonder what Faye would do if she had died with me; I don't know why I do, though. She'd probably choose to die and then spend the rest of her afterlife owning a horse-racing track and stealing money from God.  
  
Jet, he'd choose to live. He'd want to go and raise bonsai trees or something.  
  
Julia, she'd die. She has about as much to live for as I do.  
  
But...maybe there's more than I think. Dying, if I'm right, would be boring; never dying and living for millions of years without escape. You can't end it all; you're dead. You can't go back and live; you lost that opportunity already. Living, I could at least try and do something decent with myself again. So, bore myself by existing forever, or humoring myself by rolling the dice and seeing what I get...  
  
I smile to myself and turn so the wind rushes at my face. A free-fall into life. I love it.  
  
"I want to live."  
  
I crash into something half-soft, half-hard. Sand. I break the barrier and find myself on the edge of unconsciousness in deep water, only thinking about one thing before I'm out:  
  
Everything's blue. 


End file.
